For an Iraq Contractor, Duty, and Then Death

By ALAN FEUER

Published: August 8, 2007

Brenton Thomas Gray was no longer a soldier when he died a soldier's death last August on a northern Baghdad road. There were an armored car, a curbside bomb, a sizzling explosion. The sky went black with smoke and melting tar.

Mr. Gray, 34, was a private security expert, a navigator for the Baghdad team of Cochise Consultancy, and one of the thousands of men who earn their paychecks in Iraq, living on their wits and carrying a gun.

Military officials estimate that 125,000 contractors are working in the country, nearly the number of American troops. The figures on those who carry guns vary widely, depending on the source, but seem to settle on about 20,000. As of June 30, government figures show, 1,001 contractors had died in Iraq since the start of the war.

A eulogy is spoken by tradition at the burial, but the story of a life is just as likely to be spoken in a bar. Mr. Gray's family took that path last week, marking their year of grief by visiting his grave, then visiting a pub.

Dying in a country far from home is a contractor's lot, but so is being branded a mercenary, a cowboy, a soldier of fortune, said some of the men who attended the gathering on Saturday in this humid town of horse farms 40 miles northwest of Fayetteville.

The pay is good, they said, though there are reasons beyond the monthly check to work, as they call it, downrange in danger's way.

''Yeah, you can make a buck,'' said Wayne Colombo, a white-haired warrant officer who, well before he worked with Mr. Gray, served with a Special Forces A-team in Vietnam. ''But you're also back with guys you know, doing what you can -- and doing what you know.''

Brenton Gray, by all accounts, did what he knew. He was born into the service, the son of an Army colonel, a base brat raised on installations in Kentucky, Colorado, Kansas, Idaho and Germany. After high school, he joined the Rangers, serving with the First Battalion, 75th Regiment at Hunter Army Airfield near Savannah, Ga. He was then assigned to Fort Bragg, N.C., and the 51st Infantry, Long Range Reconnaissance/Surveillance Unit, before he earned the Green Beret of the Special Forces.

It would be easy to tell his life through military honors, like his cherished ''triple canopy'' -- the Army's term for Airborne, Ranger and Special Forces tabs worn stacked atop one another on a soldier's left sleeve. In the contract world, where tales of prowess are often tossed like poker chips, he was a consummate professional, his colleagues said, quiet, tactically proficient, focused.

''I didn't even know he was S.F.'' -- Special Forces -- ''until someone else told me,'' said a husky former Ranger who worked with him at Cochise. ''All he talked about was his family life at first.''

Early in the day on Saturday, that family -- his mother, Marsha; his sister, Randi; and his wife, Courtnay -- raised a toast to him at the Old Bethesda Cemetery, where his headstone read U.S. Army, loving husband, father, hero -- in that order. Champagne was served from the tailgate of a minivan. It was sipped by bearded bikers and equestrian girls in gingham. The mourners raised their glasses to a rich summer sun, and military contract workers in New Zealand, Israel, Kuwait, South Africa and Britain had been told to set their watches for a drink at 4 p.m.

No one goes dry on the anniversary of a contractor's death. The party moved from the graveyard to a tavern near the railroad tracks. Your money wasn't good there. Mr. Gray's favorite drink, a gin and tonic, was placed beside his portrait on the bar.

Although the monthly pay can reach $18,000, the contractor's life was not for Doug Jenkins or Bill Strausburg, two active-duty Special Forces soldiers who did not know Mr. Gray but were drawn to the bar out of respect.

''It's a trust issue; I trust the guys I work with now,'' said Mr. Jenkins, a warrant officer and medic. ''You can make good money, but you got to be around, you got to be alive, to spend it.''

Besides, he said, private contracts are really only good as short-term work. The health-care benefits are limited; there are no pensions.

The room seemed physically to stiffen as Mr. Gray's teammates from Iraq walked in, a tight-knit group that installed itself at the bar. One of them set out the portrait of Mr. Gray with the smoky circle of an ammunition detonation rising in a halo at his head.

''How long did you know my son?'' Mr. Gray's mother asked.

The team leader said about two years.

Mrs. Gray touched another picture of her son, in a photo album lying on the bar.

''That's my fair-haired boy,'' she said. And both of them walked away.

The rest of the night went by with churning stories -- of Mr. Gray on his skateboard; of Mr. Gray sleepwalking; how he used to jump from airplanes at 30,000 feet, at night, falling through the clouds. The officer's son who never wanted to ride his father's coattails; the young boy back from basic training who, literally, married the girl next door.

Then, as he himself might have wanted, the evening slipped away from Brenton Gray and toward the living -- toward talk of wives and colleagues, stateside jobs and daughters dating boys with spiky hair. The everyday mixed with the unprintable. Another round was bought: beers with Scotch-and-coke.

It was getting on toward dusk when the two Special Forces soldiers walked outside, and headed toward their Harleys and the pair of flags that flew on wooden dowels behind the seats. Were they leaving? No, but it was sunset.

''Proper care of the flag,'' one said, sheathing it in plastic. ''Eighteen years. It's a hard habit to break.''

PHOTOS: A photo of Mr. Gray, and beside it, his favorite drink.; Jill Jernigan, left, a childhood friend of Brenton T. Gray, with his widow, Courtnay, last weekend at a tribute to Mr. Gray, a private security expert on contract in Iraq, a year after his death.; Mr. Gray's colleagues joined family members and friends at the cemetery where he is buried. (PHOTOGRAPH BY PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEREMY M. LANGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)